Friday, October 15, 2010

Sorry for Apologizing....

..but I had the best intentions of using this blog to track all the
major transitions as my school became a 1:1 laptop school, in order to
provide a road map for other tech facilitators who are going through
this transition and who similarly lack some anecdotal touchstones to
normalize to. Unfortunately, so much has happened already that I feel
like I have missed out on some important events, but, as they say;
better late than never, so let me recap what has happened so far and I
promise to be more faithful in keeping up in the future.

We did
all our prep work last year: created as many predictive policies as
possible, kept our invested population informed through postings on our
webpage, sent home announcements and proclamations, and talked
incessantly to our kids about the rollout in the fall. Even with all
that, there really is no way to completely prepare for the logistical
challenge of getting 1500 computers into the hands of 1500 5-12 grade
students. The challenge was amplified because we had laptop carts last
year which were unavailable this year, so until we had the laptops
distributed, none of the teachers could use any technologies at all! So
we ran weekend and after-school sessions for 3 weeks: 20 kids (plus a
parent) per session, three on Saturday and one every day after classes.
Each session began with a one-hour meeting where I explained our Student
Use Protocols in great detail, then we had a 'out of the box hands-on
session' where the kids got their computers and we changed passwords,
installed programs, and gave some 'care and feeding of your laptop'
details.

The Student Use Protocols are interesting. Knowing how
powerful the forces are for teens to participate in certain distractive
technologies like gaming and social networking, we knew it was an
impossible task to completely ban those at school. However, we also know
that not taking a stand at all was tantamount to being fully
permissive, so we discussed with the kids the importance of making
responsible decisions on their own. The big mantras were "do the Right
Thing" and "think of what your behaviors would be if your parents were
standing behind you." In general, the appeal worked as we have had very
few incidents of teachers complaining that kids are chatting excessively
during class, and I don't see TOO many kids gaming during their free
time, but I do have to make a conscious decision to relax and be
permissive; after all, gaming isn't evil and our kids are quite highly
dedicated to their schoolwork. However, I sort of expect to see a
general erosion over time and am already thinking of strategies to get
the kids to realign their behaviors in the near future.